Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska: The TLC Podcast Interview

You might remember that a couple months ago Sarah Palin passed through Houston on her nationwide book tour. She was joined by TLC’s Talkback bloggers who were excited to meet our own bloggers, Team Red’s Kathleen McKinley and Team Blue’s Bobby Hankinson, and ask them what they really thought about the Mama Grizzly’s televised love letter to Alaska. It took a little while, but the TLC interview is finally up on TLC’s site!

Q: What’s interesting is that this one started with drama in the sense that Sarah Palin brings a political profile and a big following and all those things with her. But then when given the Mark Burnett and TLC wrapping and treatment I think it has opened up perspective and changed the way she is viewed. I’m curious if as a fan, you think the show is good television or is good representation of the personality that’s on display?

Team Red: Well, if you read Bobby posts for today, I think that’s a good example of how she’s changing minds because Bobby is from the liberal side and I think his first posts were kind of making fun of her a little bit and things like that. But if you read his posts today, he was saying that he really felt like he was seeing her as a person instead of a politician, and that he kind of liked her and her family. So, I think in that respect, I think it’s definitely changing minds. If it can change someone like Bobby’s mind, then what about the people who really aren’t political who can go either way during the political season – the independent voters. I wrote today that I think that she really wanted to show America what she was before she was thrown into the national spotlight, again. Something like “This is my family. This is what we do. We have this fishing business and live in this arctic land.” And just to give her a viewing. You can’t help but like that, you know, because it’s just like something in our family.

Q: When we look back on a show like this in terms of its influence on political television, or television featuring non-celebrity influential people and/or reality television shows, or nature documentary stuff, what do you think, if any, influence it might have on that run of shows that follows?

Team Blue: It’s going to be very interesting to see. I think it’s going to depend a lot on how the political landscape changes that go along with it. Because it’s sort of a turn in the waters in a lot of ways, to see politicians let people in, in this sort of way, in this reality TV sort of way. Depending on how things play out over next few years, it’s either going to be replicated, or completely avoided and never tried again. Depending if what this sort of family-oriented, folksy Americana image is what starts gaining popularity and attraction in the political world, and suddenly everyone is going to be out shooting moose and doing what they do in the backwoods of their house, and fishing and doing all that. And if it doesn’t, then that’s the last you will ever see of it again, and it will be a punch line for the next ten years.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.